


dogs are not our whole life (but they make our lives whole)

by sheisraging



Series: little windows [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Dogs, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Pets, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheisraging/pseuds/sheisraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They got a dog. It had to happen sooner or later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dogs are not our whole life (but they make our lives whole)

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks, as always, to [Ignited](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ignited/pseuds/ignited) for the beta.

On the first truly hot day of summer, they decide to go to the beach. As devoted as they’d like to be, Coney Island is just too far from home these days, and though they’d never consider themselves snobs, Orchard Beach is, well, nothing either of them would want to swim in if it’s not Mission Critical.

They wind up packing up the saddlebags on Steve’s bike and riding out to the beach in Rye for the day. The shore is pretty quiet when they arrive in the morning, so they find a spot just far enough from the water not to get wet when the tide rolls in and spread their large blanket out on the sand. 

Steve peels his shirt off, sits down, and is about to flop onto his back when Bucky digs a toe under his ass and shakes his head. Steve holds his hand up over his eyes to block out the sun as he looks up to see Bucky holding a tube of sunscreen. 

“Awww, Ma,” Steve mock whines at him.

“Don’t give me any shit, Rogers,” Bucky warns, tossing the tube at him.

“I don’t even know if I can get sunburns anymore,” he complains, popping open the tube and smearing some of the lotion on his chest.

“Well, this way we don’t have to find out.” Bucky grins, taking the tube and squeezing some lotion into his palm. “I’ll get your back.”

“What about you?” Steve asks.

“You’ll do mine after.”

Bucky rubs the sunscreen all over Steve’s back and neck, making sure to cover the backs of his arms as well, and then takes a bit for himself to cover his arms, chest, face and shoulders. He moves to sit in front of Steve and hands the tube back to him again. 

Steve laughs quietly as he rubs the lotion into the back of Bucky’s right shoulder. 

“What?” Bucky asks, turning his head slightly.

“Nothin’,” Steve huffs quietly, “just feeling nostalgic.”

Bucky drops his head forward and chuckles, waits for Steve to pull his hands away and then leans back, pressing his lotion sticky back to Steve’s chest. 

“Ugh, Buck,” Steve laughs, pushing him forward.

Bucky’s shoulders shake as he laughs and turns to look back at Steve. 

“You know I hate being sticky,” Steve says with a grimace, rubbing at his chest.

“Coulda fooled me last night,” Bucky counters with a raised brow.

“Besides, I was feeling nostalgic, too,” he adds, looking at Steve’s wrinkled nose and shakes his head, “Same face.” 

“Ass,” Steve says, shoving at Bucky’s shoulder. “You satisfied? I’m all covered now.”

Bucky nods, leaning back to plant a kiss on Steve’s cheek before he leaps up from the blanket. He runs towards the water, diving into the first wave that comes rolling in and lets the water carry him under, enjoying the pull and tumble for as long as he can before his lungs demand air.

He breaks the surface with a smile and is about to turn to wave at Steve when a wet, furry bundle collides with him, mouthing at his right wrist and tugging. Bucky’s first instinct is to attack, but he has enough wits about him to realize that the furry bundle is a German Shepard that seems to think it’s rescuing him. 

Bucky forces his muscles to relax and lets the dog tug him closer to the sand. 

“ROSCOE, NO!” A woman is standing by the shore as they roll back in.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she calls out, hands rising to cover her face. 

The dog, Roscoe, drops Bucky’s arm and runs out of the water toward the woman, tongue lolling about and tail swishing wildly. Bucky drags himself out of the water and smiles. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.” 

Roscoe runs back and forth between them, as if making sure everyone’s okay with the job seemingly well done.

“She likes to help,” the woman offers, patting Roscoe on the head. “I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s some kind of super hero.”

Bucky grins as Steve approaches them. “I’m familiar with the type.”

Roscoe immediately butts her head into Steve’s knees, tail waving happily as he crouches to bury his fingers in the scruff beneath her ears. 

“Well, she seems like a real sweet dog. You’re lucky to have her,” Bucky says, watching as Roscoe lathers Steve’s face with kisses.

Steve laughs, falling back on his ass in the sand and letting the dog in even closer. “Definitely friendly,” he manages to get out.

“That she is,” the woman replies with a fond look. “Unfortunately, she’s not mine. Well, not really. I’m Emily, by the way,” she says, extending her left hand toward Bucky. 

Bucky only lets himself hesitate for a split second before reaching out and shaking her hand in his metal one.

“Bucky,” he replies, then tilts his head down. “And that’s Steve.”

“Yeah, I figured.” She nods toward the dog, “That’s Roscoe… but I said that. Loudly. Sorry… again.” 

Bucky waves his hand. “I’m fine, really. I guess you’re… dog-sitting or whatever they call it?”

“Oh, no, she’s a rescue. I signed up to foster her until the shelter can find a permanent home, but my landlord is being pretty nasty about the whole thing. I was hoping she’d let it go, but it looks like I’m gonna have to bring her back.”

Bucky looks at Steve, now lying on his back in the sand trying to keep his mouth closed to avoid dog tongue from getting in when he laughs. Roscoe is wagging her hips from side to side as she criss-crosses his body, nuzzling and kissing Steve’s face. 

“What are the odds of them finding her something permanent?” 

Emily shrugs, a small, sad smile on her face as she watches Roscoe roll around in the sand with Steve. “She’d been there for almost a year when I took her. She’s already about five years old, so, I don’t know honestly.”

\---

“Not too late to turn back,” Natasha offers, “Of course, I will be royally pissed if you made me drive all the way out here for nothing.”

Bucky chews the inside of his cheek and stares out the window. He casts a sidelong glare in her direction before huffing a breath out through his nose. “Fuck it,” he mutters, swinging the door open and throwing it shut behind him as he heaves out and stalks up the path to the front stoop.

The echo of Natasha’s door slamming shut follows a few seconds later and she’s beside him at the front door as he stands and glares at the buzzer. 

“Is this a terrible idea?” Bucky asks.

Natasha shrugs, “I don’t think it’s a _bad_ idea…”

“But you think I should have told him first,” Bucky tacks on.

“It may have been worth a discussion.”

Bucky twists his lips to the side, biting at the inside of his cheek again. Natasha eyes him quietly, one eyebrow raised. After a few seconds of silence, she leans across him and presses the buzzer beside the front door.

Bucky’s head whips back and forth between Natasha and the door. “What the fuck— I didn’t decide if—”

“Decided for you,” Natasha shrugs coolly, “Now you can blame it on me.”

“I’m not gonna blame it on you, don’t be—” Bucky quiets when the scampering of feet and loud barking start hurrying toward the door from the other side, followed by faint footsteps.

A few locks turn and Emily opens the door with Roscoe pacing around behind her legs. 

“Hey, Emily,” Bucky opens with a wave, “We met on the beach the other day.”

“Of course, Bucky, yeah, um…” she looks over at Natasha, eyes widening just a bit, and then back to Bucky, “How did you know where I lived?”

Bucky scrubs his hands over his face, then shoves them in his pockets.

“I have… a lot of resources at my disposal,” Bucky offers, sparing a quick glance at Natasha, who simply smiles and offers out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Resources,” Natasha says, brightly.

Emily shakes Natasha’s hand, looking back and forth between them and obviously a bit awed. She smiles a bit. “Can I help you or—”

“Actually, I was hoping maybe I could help you.”

\---

“I didn’t think this through before agreeing to drive you here,” Natasha notes as she glances in the rearview to monitor the panting dog sprawled across her leather seat. 

Bucky turns his head back, beaming. “It’s easier to clean leather than fabric,” he reaches back and rubs his hand over Roscoe’s head. “I’ll pay for it.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and waves a hand at him. “That’s not necessary.”

Roscoe whines a bit when Bucky turns back around, but her attention is quickly grabbed by the window and she’s soon propped up against the armrest, head poked out into the fresh air, tongue wagging in the breeze. 

The anxiety starts building in Bucky’s chest as they pull off the I-95 and edge closer to the island. He starts to envision the conversation with Steve in his mind, planning out what to say and the different ways it could go.

“He’s not going to be mad,” Natasha says as she pulls the car up to the curb. 

Bucky’s turns to face her, eyebrows raised and still biting at the inside of his cheek.

Natasha shrugs. “It’s Steve and it’s you. He might be a little bummed that you didn’t say something first, but not angry. You can stop eating your face.”

“I’m not—”

Natasha pulls her lips to the side and chews on the inside of her cheek, giving him an exaggerated peek at how his face must have looked all day long. Bucky relaxes his mouth and licks his lips. 

“Go,” she says, nodding toward the house. “I need to go get the inside of my car washed.”

Bucky nods, grabbing the bag of supplies Emily gave him as he pushes the door open, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Natasha answers, a soft smile on her lips. 

Bucky pats his thigh and Roscoe crawls into the front seat, and hops out the door. Natasha shakes her head, brushing fur off her sleeve and twists to get a look at the fur-covered backseat of her car.

“I wasn’t kidding, I really will pay for it,” Bucky offers as Roscoe sits patiently beside him on the lawn.

“You can owe me one,” she replies, turning back with a smirk.

Bucky shakes his head and grins, “I know better than that.”

“Don’t worry about it, really. Just go inside and don’t get yourself worked up about what Steve’s going to say. Steve will be Steve,” she shrugs. “At the end of the day, he just wants you to be happy.”

Bucky nods and pats the top of the car before turning away.

“Thanks again,” he calls over his shoulder. Roscoe follows him to the door, trotting happily into the house, quickly hopping up on the sofa and making herself at home. 

Bucky stands in front of the sofa and stares at her trying to figure out if he should tell her to get down or let her stay. After a prolonged silence, Roscoe makes a little whine gets up on her own, jumping down and coming to sit by Bucky’s feet, staring up at him expectantly. 

“I have no idea, girl,” he mutters, reaching down to scrub his hand over her head. He sighs and looks down at the bag in his hand. “Dinner?”

Roscoe tilts her head at the sound of the plastic bag wrinkling. Her tail starts to swish back and forth across the floor and she follows Bucky when he turns and heads into the kitchen to scoop out a bowl of her food. 

Bucky drops himself into a chair at the kitchen table and watches Roscoe devour her kibble in just a few bites. She wanders over to him and sits down by his feet, pressing her head against his knee. Bucky absently scratches behind her ears as he mulls over Natasha’s words in his mind. 

Ultimately, he knows Natasha’s is right — Steve wants him to be happy and it’s unlikely that he’d actually be downright angry, but it’s still not fair to have made this decision without talking to him first. The last thing Bucky wants is for Steve to agree to something _just_ to make him happy and not because Steve actually wants to. 

He sits for what winds up being too long, gets lost in too many possible conversation scenarios — both good and bad, but mostly bad. Eventually, Bucky feels himself starting to zone out and forces himself to finish up some busy work around the house. All the while, he keeps turning imaginary conversations over in his head, trying and failing to stop feeling guilty. 

He’s in the bedroom folding laundry when Steve texts to say his meeting at the Tower is running late. The text is immediately followed by a photo of Tony waving his arms in front of a holographic presentation, and another of Steve with his elbow resting on the table, head propped up against his hand, which is discretely miming a gun to his temple. 

_You take that from your lap?_ Bucky replies, grinning as he hits send.

Steve responds with a winking emoticon, _Trying not to be too obvious._

Bucky’s about to reply when Roscoe pads into the room and hops up on the bed, stretching out half on top of the pile of unfolded clean clothes and rolling onto her back. 

“Hey, no don’t,” Bucky shoves at her side until she flips back onto her stomach and drops her head onto her paws, staring up at him with her big sad dog eyes. 

“Christ,” Bucky mutters. He gathers the rest of the clean clothes back into the hamper and deposits it in the corner to be folded later on, quickly puts the folded items into the drawers they belong in, and then crawls onto the bed and plants his face in his pillow. 

After a few seconds, he feels Roscoe creeping up the bed and pressing herself against him. Bucky cracks an eye open and finds Roscoe watching him curiously. He reaches his arm out and ruffles her fur, which results in Roscoe flopping over with her back to Bucky and her paws out in front of her. Bucky scratches her belly absently and eventually drifts off to sleep.

\---

As a kid, Bucky had always wanted a dog. Steve can remember at least three instances when he’d snuck strays into his house and hoped his parents wouldn’t notice. The Barnes family wasn’t nearly as hard up as Steve and his mom had been, but a dog was still another mouth to feed and the Barnes’s already had four. The longest Bucky had ever gotten away with it was a few hours. His mom would eventually catch on and chase the dog away while Bucky and his sisters cried. 

He’d always fed the strays in Europe, too, palm open to whatever rail-thin, shivering creature crept over to him. Steve had been grateful to those European street dogs for being able to grant Bucky whatever comfort he took in them after Zola’s table. 

All things considered, Steve isn’t really surprised when he comes home from an excruciatingly long meeting at the Tower and finds Bucky curled up in bed with his arm draped over a large, hairy lump. 

He stands at his side of their bed for a moment, quietly watching Bucky sleep. Roscoe, sensing a new presence in the room, lifts her head and assesses Steve with a quick sniff. Her tail thumps gently against the mattress a few times before she licks her nose and plops her head back down on Steve’s pillow with a huff. Bucky doesn’t stir. 

Steve scrubs a hand over his face and through his hair as he turns back toward the living room. He grabs the remote and drops onto the sofa, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table and slouching comfortably against the cushions. There’s nothing on that grabs his attention, so he winds up settling for a baseball game and eventually dozes off. 

He wakes after sundown to the sound of water running in the kitchen. There’s a blanket draped over him and a cold, wet nose nudging at his palm. Steve rubs at his eyes, and then lets his hand drift over Roscoe’s head. Her tail immediately starts a slow side to side, thumping against the cushions on each swing. 

Steve lets his head loll back against the sofa while he scratches behind Roscoe’s ears. He hears the water in the kitchen turn off, followed by the sound of dishes clanking and a few muttered curses, and then the soft sound of bare feet padding across the hardwood floor toward the living room. Roscoe’s head whips up in the direction of the entryway, tail taking up just a bit more speed.

Bucky turns the corner, sees Steve awake, with the dog sitting next to him on the sofa, and freezes mid-step. Steve raises an eyebrow and says nothing as Bucky’s mouth opens and closes, a little crease forming at his brow as he exhales through his nose and crosses the floor. Roscoe stands up and turns in excited circles as Bucky approaches the sofa and sits down. He runs his hand over her head a few times until she settles on the cushion between them, and then clears his throat and turns a bit toward Steve who simply raises both eyebrows and waits.

“So, I ran into Emily today,” Bucky says.

Steve nods, waiting a beat before asking, “Where?” 

Bucky stares for a few seconds, chewing the inside of his cheek. “In Rye. At her apartment.”

They stare at each other silently for a few seconds until Bucky finally heaves a sigh. “I should have asked how you felt about it–”

“Would have been nice–” Steve cuts in.

“But who knows how long she would have had, I mean, you heard what Emily said right… I couldn’t… I just thought if I could help–”

“If we could help,” Steve offers.

Bucky pauses and looks up at Steve. “You’re okay with this,” he says. 

Steve shakes his head, “Yeah, Buck. I mean, we’ll have to figure out what to do when we both get called out–”

“Emily offered to watch her for us already,” Bucky answers hurriedly. “But I’m sure we can figure something else out if you’re not okay with that.”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess,” Steve strokes his hand over Roscoe’s back.

“She can’t have my side of the bed,” he says quickly.

Bucky laughs. “You’ve got nothing to worry about there.”

\---

It’s new for both of them, so there’s a learning curve involved. Steve goes online and reads a bunch of articles about training and food and routines. He quickly learns that there’s no real right or wrong when it comes to foods - only levels of extremes… and there are some extremes. They wander up and down the food aisle at the pet store for a while, reading ingredients and trying to figure out why one thing is better or worse than the other.

“How can you even tell?” Bucky asks, reading over ingredients lists on the backs of two different bags of food.

Steve shrugs, holding a third bag. “Christ, some of this stuff is so gourmet it’s better than we ate as kids. I could eat this.”

Bucky grins, and takes the bag out of Steve’s hands, “I’ll start mixing it in with your meals until you get used to it.”

“That is what all the articles say to do,” Steve laughs.

“It’ll help keep your coat shiny,” Bucky says, putting the bag into their cart. 

A few aisles over, Bucky pulls a bunch of dog beds down from shelves and puts them on the floor, letting Roscoe off her leash to sniff and paw at them. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, leaning his forearms on the front of the shopping cart.

“Letting her pick,” Bucky answers, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Steve shakes his head and laughs, but digs his phone out of his pocket and films a short video of Roscoe walking from bed to bed, sniffing the corners, spinning in circles and sitting for brief seconds before moving on. She finally settles in a large round, overstuffed bed, first curling up and then flopping over on her back, presenting them with her belly. 

“I think she’s good,” Steve says with a nod.

\---

“Are you gonna change her name?” Sam asks as he tosses a ball for Roscoe to chase after in the backyard.

Bucky makes a face. “Why would we do that?”

Roscoe comes trotting back, dropping the ball by Sam’s feet. He sits forward in his chair, grabs the scruff at the sides of her neck and scratches, pulling their faces close together. 

“Roscoe’s more of a boy’s name, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” he coos in that high pitched way people seem to us when they speak to animals. Bucky snorts around the lip of his beer bottle and Sam laughs at himself. “Can’t help it man.”

Bucky waves a hand. “Steve does it all the time.”

“Lies,” Steve says, walking past them and grabbing the ball. Roscoe quickly jumps away from Sam and follows Steve out onto the grass.

Bucky slouches into his chair and kicks his legs up onto the lawn table. “He calls her his pretty princess,” he says.

A second later, Bucky raises his left arm to catch Roscoe’s ball as it comes flying towards his head. He tosses it back to Steve who just grins and turns to throw the ball for the now anxiously waiting dog. 

“They tell you how she wound up as Roscoe?” Sam asks.

“Doesn’t really matter now. It’s what she knows.” Bucky shrugs, “I wouldn’t… I mean, I know she’s a dog, but… That’s her name.”

Sam smiles. “Roscoe it is, then.” 

\---

It’s the last stretch of a nine day mission and Bucky’s exhausted, sore, and anxious to get off the jet and back home. He settles gingerly into one of the recliners, wincing as he shifts to get comfortable. 

“Guess you really feel it at your age, huh, old man?” Natasha observes as she slips into the seat beside him. 

Bucky cocks at eyebrow at the fresh bandages on her ankle and wrist, “Could say the same for you. Nothing broken?”

“Nah, just sprains,” she says with a small smile. “Should be good as new in no time at all.”

Bucky chuckles, “Glad to hear it.”

“Clint says we should be back in cell range any minute now. We’re still a few hours out from New York.” 

Bucky reaches down and digs his cell out of his back pocket, wincing again at the motion.

“Shut up,” he warns when Natasha smirks at him.

She raises both hands and shrugs, smiling brightly as she does. 

Their phones buzz to life a few seconds later, messages and alerts that they’ve missed over the past few days of radio silence flooding in all at once. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Natasha says, tapping at her own phone for a moment before rising from her seat and slipping away.

Bucky and Steve have an agreement to always give a heads up if they’re about to go offline for any significant amount of time, but they both have the tendency to continue sending messages once the other has gone dark anyway. There are four new messages from Steve waiting for him. 

_Did you mean to DVR a week’s worth of Giada at Home?_ , is the first one, sent only an hour or so after they first shut down. Bucky hopes Steve didn’t cancel all of his recordings. There were a few pasta recipes that didn’t seem too intimidating and DVR is so much easier than On Demand… if he can even get those On Demand. 

The second one, _Saw this, thought of you_ , is immediately followed by an under the covers shot of Steve’s fist wrapped around his hard cock first thing in the morning. Bucky stares at it for longer than is probably necessary, but it’s been over a week. He saves the photo to the password protected folder that he has specifically for things like this, thinking, if the world only knew Captain America as Steve Rogers. 

The third one, sent some time last night, is a photo of Steve and Roscoe, laying on their backs in bed. Roscoe has her paws pulled up against her chest, her tongue lolls out the side of her mouth which is open in a big, toothy dog-smile, and her eyes are open wide and bright. Beside her, Steve is doing his best to make the same exact face. 

Bucky actually laughs out loud when the photo loads and immediately makes it the wallpaper on his phone.

And the last, _Clean clothes in the dryer when you get home_ , came in only an hour ago. Bucky closes his eyes and lets himself relax for the first time in days. 

\---

It’s well after 2am when Bucky finally gets home. The house is dark and quiet. He toes off his boots and brings his bags and gear to the laundry room where he quickly shucks off his clothes, tossing everything into the washer to be dealt with in the morning. He pulls on a pair of sweats from the dryer and tugs his hair back into a ponytail. The pat-pat-pat of paws on the floor brings a smile to his face and Bucky sinks to his knees as Roscoe turns the corner. He shakes his head, laughing softly when he sees that she’s outfitted in a bright pink t-shirt that reads “My Daddies <3 Me” on the back. Bucky scratches his hands through her fur for a bit, petting her head before planting a kiss there and rising to his feet. Roscoe follows him to the bedroom where she immediately goes to her bed and curls up to sleep.

Steve is passed out on his stomach, one arm dangling on the floor and one flung across empty expanse of mattress that Bucky normally occupies. He shifts onto his side as Bucky quietly climbs into bed, lifting his arm briefly and then dropping it back over Bucky’s waist once he’s settled.

“Tony sent the t-shirt,” Steve slurs, not bothering to open his eyes.

Bucky nods, drifts a hand through Steve’s hair and watches the lines of tension slowly leave his face. “And who put it on her?”

Steve cracks one eye open to see Bucky grinning at him.

“Shuddap,” he huffs, bringing his hand up to the back of Bucky’s head and tugging until Bucky’s pressed close enough.

“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s neck.

“Least I didn’t give her your side of the bed,” Steve mumbles back.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://sheisraging.tumblr.com) and be amazed at how many photos of Chris Evans I can reblog in one week!


End file.
